Stephan Bergmann
416b2ee59f
That make target operates on an archive, but generates data to be applied to an msi installation, so suffers from any mismatch between archive and msi install sets. Two such mismatches, at least on Windows, are: 1 Files that msi will install outside the LibreOffice installation itself (but which for an archive install set are included under LibreOffice/). This covers (at least) .Net assemblies and associated files that are installed in the GAC (scp2 styles ASSEMBLY and ASSIGNCOMPONENT) and fonts (scp2 style FONT). 2 Files that msi will only install conditionally. This covers optional components (many of which in scp2 are assigned to gid_Module_Optional_... modules) and user interface languages (which in scp2 are assigned to gid_Module_Langpack_... modules). The approach taken here is to create a workdir/installation/LibreOffice/archive/install/metadata file while building an archive install set, and to record any files matching 1 (as "skip" lines) or 2 (as "cond" lines). Then, the create-update-info target uses that metadata file to act accordingly on those files: 1 Files from "skip" lines are simply removed for now from the extracted archive that is passed to Mozilla's make_full_update.sh script. (TODO: That means that changes to such files will not be updated with the MAR update mechanism. This would apparently need some extra processing during the MAR update.) 2 Files from "cond" lines shall be recorded as add-if in the mar file manifest. Mozilla's make_full_update.sh script already has support for emitting add-if vs. plain add, but only for files under distribution/extensions/, which doesn't match our needs. So we generate from the metadata file an ifs file that we pass into the make_full_update.sh script, and patch that script to also take that ifs file into account. (Each line in the ifs file is of the form "testfile" "file" which works as long as none of the pathnames contains double quote characters. The Mozilla script code appears to be confused about the arguments to make_add_instruction(), where this ifs file will be needed: There are calls to make_add_instruction() with two or three arguments across make_full_update.sh and make_incremental_update.sh, but make_add_instruction() checks $1, $2, and $4 (but not $3), so leave that mess alone and pass the ifs file as a global IFSFILE variable instead.) The mar file manifest `add-if "testfile" "file"` adds "file" only if "testfile" is already present, and those two can be different files. TODO: However, for simplicity, for now I always use "file" also as the "testfile" (so that an add-if file only gets updated if it was already present). That avoids having to identify a specific "key file" for each optional component and for each user interface language, where that key file would be used as the add-if testfile. But on the other hand, it means that if an optional component or a user interface language will bring along a completely new file in the future, we will not install that file during a MAR update. What obviously remains to be done is to properly assign each add-if file to a specific key file. (And the current way of identifying add-if files by gid_Module_... names appears to be too simplistic too. For example, there are some gid_Module_Optional_... that are installed unconditionally for msi; but it should be harmless that those files are recorded as add-if rather than as plain add.) Change-Id: I2fdeed92604f3a2d8a0b500b9e3fa421cfb6a9cc Reviewed-on: https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/161917 Tested-by: Jenkins Reviewed-by: Stephan Bergmann <stephan.bergmann@allotropia.de>
LibreOffice
LibreOffice is an integrated office suite based on copyleft licenses and compatible with most document formats and standards. Libreoffice is backed by The Document Foundation, which represents a large independent community of enterprises, developers and other volunteers moved by the common goal of bringing to the market the best software for personal productivity. LibreOffice is open source, and free to download, use and distribute.
A quick overview of the LibreOffice code structure.
Overview
You can develop for LibreOffice in one of two ways, one recommended and one much less so. First the somewhat less recommended way: it is possible to use the SDK to develop an extension, for which you can read the API docs and Developers Guide. This re-uses the (extremely generic) UNO APIs that are also used by macro scripting in StarBasic.
The best way to add a generally useful feature to LibreOffice is to work on the code base however. Overall this way makes it easier to compile and build your code, it avoids any arbitrary limitations of our scripting APIs, and in general is far more simple and intuitive - if you are a reasonably able C++ programmer.
The Build Chain and Runtime Baselines
These are the current minimal operating system and compiler versions to run and compile LibreOffice, also used by the TDF builds:
- Windows:
- Runtime: Windows 7
- Build: Cygwin + Visual Studio 2019 version 16.10
- macOS:
- Runtime: 10.15
- Build: 12 (13 for aarch64) + Xcode 14
- Linux:
- Runtime: RHEL 8 or CentOS 8 and comparable
- Build: either GCC 12; or Clang 12 with libstdc++ 8.5
- iOS (only for LibreOfficeKit):
- Runtime: 11.4 (only support for newer i devices == 64 bit)
- Build: Xcode 9.3 and iPhone SDK 11.4
- Android:
- Build: NDK r23 and SDK 30.0.3
- Emscripten / WASM:
- Runtime: a browser with SharedMemory support (threads + atomics)
- Build: Qt 5.15 with Qt supported Emscripten 1.39.8
- See README.wasm
Java is required for building many parts of LibreOffice. In TDF Wiki article Development/Java, the exact modules that depend on Java are listed.
The baseline for Java is Java Development Kit (JDK) Version 17 or later.
If you want to use Clang with the LibreOffice compiler plugins, the minimal version of Clang is 12.0.1. Since Xcode doesn't provide the compiler plugin headers, you have to compile your own Clang to use them on macOS.
You can find the TDF configure switches in the distro-configs/ directory.
To setup your initial build environment on Windows and macOS, we provide the LibreOffice Development Environment (LODE) scripts.
For more information see the build instructions for your platform in the TDF wiki.
The Important Bits of Code
Each module should have a README.md file inside it which has some
degree of documentation for that module; patches are most welcome to
improve those. We have those turned into a web page here:
However, there are two hundred modules, many of them of only peripheral interest for a specialist audience. So - where is the good stuff, the code that is most useful. Here is a quick overview of the most important ones:
| Module | Description |
|---|---|
| sal/ | this provides a simple System Abstraction Layer |
| tools/ | this provides basic internal types: Rectangle, Color etc. |
| vcl/ | this is the widget toolkit library and one rendering abstraction |
| framework/ | UNO framework, responsible for building toolbars, menus, status bars, and the chrome around the document using widgets from VCL, and XML descriptions from /uiconfig/ files |
| sfx2/ | legacy core framework used by Writer/Calc/Draw: document model / load/save / signals for actions etc. |
| svx/ | drawing model related helper code, including much of Draw/Impress |
Then applications
| Module | Description |
|---|---|
| desktop/ | this is where the main() for the application lives, init / bootstrap. the name dates back to an ancient StarOffice that also drew a desktop |
| sw/ | Writer |
| sc/ | Calc |
| sd/ | Draw / Impress |
There are several other libraries that are helpful from a graphical perspective:
| Module | Description |
|---|---|
| basegfx/ | algorithms and data-types for graphics as used in the canvas |
| canvas/ | new (UNO) canvas rendering model with various backends |
| cppcanvas/ | C++ helper classes for using the UNO canvas |
| drawinglayer/ | View code to render drawable objects and break them down into primitives we can render more easily. |
Rules for #include Directives (C/C++)
Use the "..." form if and only if the included file is found next to the
including file. Otherwise, use the <...> form. (For further details, see the
mail Re: C[++]: Normalizing include syntax ("" vs
<>).)
The UNO API include files should consistently use double quotes, for the benefit of external users of this API.
loplugin:includeform (compilerplugins/clang/includeform.cxx) enforces these rules.
Finding Out More
Beyond this, you can read the README.md files, send us patches, ask
on the mailing list libreoffice@lists.freedesktop.org (no subscription
required) or poke people on IRC #libreoffice-dev on irc.libera.chat -
we're a friendly and generally helpful mob. We know the code can be
hard to get into at first, and so there are no silly questions.